VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 11 - General Manager of Garuda Indonesia in Manado, Vonny F. Pinontoan, affirmed that the airlines was fostering the growth of North Sulawesi Province’s fishery exports.

"We are doing it as the export potential of the fisheries sector is quite high," Pinontoan remarked here on Wednesday.

The general manager noted that Garuda Indonesia had transported direct call cargoes 23 times from the Sam Ratulangi International Airport in Manado to Narita Airport of Tokyo, Japan.

Pinontoan remarked that 356.2 tons of fishery products had been exported.

Fishery products, including tuna, were the commodities largely exported to Japan. In addition, other exported commodities are agricultural products and general cargo.

Of the 23 shipments, three were delivered, with a cargo volume of over 20 tons in one shipment. The highest record was clocked on January 6, 2021, with the shipment volume reaching 27 tons.

Fluctuations in shipping volume cannot be separated from the dependence on tuna products from North Sulawesi and Ambon as well as the surrounding areas.

"If the weather is bad, tuna products shipped will decrease, and the volume will also decline," Pinontoan noted.  

Pinontoan noted that North Sulawesi’s export potential was quite high in the fisheries, agriculture, and plantation sectors. Several products that can be exported from the region, include chrysanthemums, which also held promise as an export product.

"Unfortunately, the market in Japan prefers certain products of grade A quality," he noted.

Pinontoan is optimistic of securing support from every stakeholder, so that direct calls to Japan can be more optimal and agricultural and plantation products from North Sulawesi can also increase direct call cargo shipments and not only be limited to tuna shipments. (Antaranews)

Mar. 11 - The Public Works and Public Housing Ministry has completed the construction of 263 Tourism Accommodation Facilities (Sarhunta) in the super-priority destination of Manado-Likupang, North Sulawesi, to support recovery of the tourism sector.

"The government believes tourism is the main sector that can rebound soon. Hence, the ministry will renovate the houses of local residents to be used as homestays in the tourism destination area. Local people can also derive benefits of the tourism sector," Minister of Public Works and Public Housing Basuki Hadimuljono noted in a statement here on Thursday.

The Sarhunta Program is a series of activities of the self-help housing assistance (BSPS) program for 2,750 uninhabitable housing units to be used as homestays. The program is implemented by the Directorate of self-help housing of the ministry's Directorate General of Housing.

Hadimuljono affirmed that the program targets to improve the quality of uninhabitable houses to become livable structures. It comprises two key activities: improvement of business function houses and non-business function houses.

The 263 Sarhunta in Manado-Likupang are located in the three villages of Marinsow, Pulisan, and Kinunang and one village in Bunaken Island.

The houses can be used as homestays as well as other supporting facilities for tourists.

The ministry has also completed the renovation of 225 non-business function houses along the road to the Likupang strategic tourism zone (KSPN).

The budget for renovation and rehabilitation of the Sarhunta in North Sulawesi has totaled Rp36.60 billion.

The design must be emblematic of the local customs. However, it can be modified to add a more modern touch to the homestays, albeit still retaining the traditional nuances to attract domestic and foreign tourists to stay.

Homestays in Manado-Likupang are rented at Rp200 thousand per night.

The ministry's Director General of Housing Khalawi Abdul Hamid remarked that the Sarhunta program is expected to support tourism recovery and boost the income of local people impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government has developed infrastructure at five super-priority National Tourism Strategic Areas (KSPN): Lake Toba, Borobudur Temple, Mandalika, Labuan Bajo, and Manado-Likupang.

Through the Sarhunta program, the government will rehabilitate one thousand housing units in Lake Toba in North Sumatra Province, 350 units in Borobudur in Central Java Province, 500 units in Mandalika in West Nusa Tenggara Province, 600 units in Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara Province, and 300 units in Manado-Likupang in North Sulawesi Province.

The program, with budget allocation totaling Rp429.23 billion, also aims to improve the quality of uninhabitable housing to become livable houses and to improve the quality of uninhabitable houses along the roads to tourist destinations.

Of the total funding, some Rp90 million is allocated for improving the housing quality and Rp180 million is allotted for constructing new houses as well as rebuilding or rehabilitating traditional houses in the tourism area.  (Antaranews)

Mar. 11 - Japanese businesspersons perceive Indonesia's job creation law as crucial to help boost the confidence of investors, according to Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita.

Kartasasmita made the statement after meeting with the Japan Business Federation (Kaidanren) that members 100 companies in the country and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), a government-related organization that works to promote mutual trade and investment between Japan and the rest of the world.

"They said the job creation law is an important point to boost the confidence of investors and prospective investors. With the regulation, the level of ease-of-doing business in Indonesia will improve," the minister noted in a statement here on Thursday.

The minister believes that Kaidanren and JETRO had lauded Indonesia's policy on import substitution.

"They understand that the policy is the Indonesian government's attempt to protect their investment. Next, we will also impose other instruments, such as the local content," he remarked.

During the visit, the minister met with officials of the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) to assess the follow-up of the Indonesia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (IJEPA) and the New Manufacturing Industrial Development Center (New MIDEC) and boost investment in the petrochemical industry.

During his second-day visit in Japan, Kartasasmita had planned to meet some automotive manufacturers, including Toyota Motor Corporation, Honda Motor Company.Ltd, Suzuki Motor Corporation, and Mazda Motor Corporation.

Kartasasmita will be the first minister to have paid a visit to the country since it announced a state of emergency in April 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the minister, it demonstrated that Indonesia was viewed as a key partner for Japan.  (Antaranews)

Mar. 11 - South Korea will authorise the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for people aged 65 years and older, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Thursday, a move that will allow the country to ramp up its immunisation drive.

The country has been rolling out the vaccine since the last week of February, beginning with the elderly and health workers, but had excluded more than 370,000 over-65s in nursing homes citing a lack of clinical trial data on the age group.

Real-world data from Britain has now shown AstraZeneca and Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccines are both more than 80% effective in preventing hospitalisations in over-80s after one shot.

“Vaccination had been postponed to those aged 65 and over due to lack of evidence to determine the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but recently, data to prove its efficacy for the elderly has been released in the UK,” Chung told a government meeting.

South Korea would begin inoculating 376,000 patients and staff aged 65 and older in nursing hospitals and other facilities this month, Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) official Kwon Jun-wook said at a briefing.

Kwon said he expected that age group, which has seen the majority of reported deaths, to reach herd immunity levels by the end of September.

Health authorities had also included around 20,000 flight attendants in the list for second-quarter vaccine recipients, as they were vulnerable to more transmissible variants and were exempt from self-quarantine.

South Korea has so far reported a total of 257 new virus variants, including 154 cases of the variant first identified in Britain and 21 of the variant discovered in South Africa, according to the KDCA.

Another 7 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine would be rolled out from the last week of May, with 7 million of Pfizer’s product by June. The KDCA is in talks with Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to import their vaccines in the second quarter.

The KDCA said 500,635 people had received a first dose of AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines as of Wednesday. South Korea reported 465 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 94,198 infections, with 1,652 deaths. (Reuters)